Starers by Nathan Robinson

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. The opinion in this review is unbiased and reflects my honest judgment of the book.

I’ve been reading horror stories since I was dextrous enough to hold both a flashlight and a book under the covers. I’m hard to scare. Starers creeped me right the %$!@# out.

The plot is deceptively simple. Dylan Keene and his brother Len are a couple of average, working-class guys. They hit the pub at the end of the week, get drunk with friends, close the pub and head home to play video games. The brothers wake up with vicious hangovers and a strange surprise--their neighbors are staring at them.

The rest of the book follows Len, Dylan, his wife Kirsty and daughter Lucy as they deal with the siege-like situation. The author brings us along for the ride with a well-crafted blend of tension, surprises, and some of the best dialogue I’ve read in a long time. I wasn’t waiting for the next thing to happen; the action flowed well and kept me hooked.

What I liked most about this book was that the Keene family didn’t have a clue what was going on and neither did I. We were all along for the ride together. That sense of shared suspense is what made the book so good. That the characters acted and reacted like normal everyday people made it even better.

My only quibble with the book was the ending. The tension and inevitable violence should have hit like a double-decker bus, but it stalled. The long internal monologues of one of the characters made me release my white-knuckled hold on my e-reader. I was tempted to roll my eyes like a petulant teenager and skip ahead to the good bits.

Read this book. After you’ve put it down, you’ll be watching over your shoulder for a creepy old man standing on the street, staring at you. It’s a fantastic read. Did I mention it made my skin crawl in a most delightful manner? Yes. You want to read Starers.

The Bookie Monster's Rating:

Imagine if you found yourself the attention of the entire world . . .

The dysfunctional Keene family awaken one Saturday to find several strangers and neighbours staring at their home. Events turn more bizarre when more hypnotised strangers arrive, all seemingly transfixed with those within the Keene household. As the ominous crowd gathers and grows larger by the hour the Keene’s find themselves under siege in their own home. With hundreds, then thousands of bodies pressing against the walls of their home, a rising body count and grim premonitions plaguing their dreams, the family must work together to discover who or what is controlling the Starers.

Nathan Robinson lives in Scunthorpe, England with his wife/editor, twin boys and a three legged cat called Dave. He's contributed to over fifteen different anthologies so far, with lots more on the horizon. His crime thriller 'Top of the Heap' was adapted in a podcast by www.pseudopod.org to rave reviews. He is currently completing four anthologies of his own work, the first to be entitled 'Devil let me go'.